BLUEBERRY PRUNING BRUSH-UP -

NO PUN INTENDED!
Cathy Heidenreich, Department of Horticulture, Cornell Universitys
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Ithaca, NY 14853

P
runing is one of the few small fruit chores commonly occurring at this time of year. It is also
the most hands-on task associated with blueberry production, other than harvesting or
planting. How to get the most bang for your buck in terms of pruning? Take a minute to
review key concepts below before you prune. Fine tune your pruning strategy accordingly to
maximize efficiency and minimize cost
expenditures both now and later in the season.

Why Prune?
Is pruning just another item on your production
schedule to be checked off, or do you really take
time to consider what you hope to achieve by
pruning? This season, re-focus on the reasons
why we prune blueberries. Pruning dollars have
direct and indirect impacts on fruit dollars for
the current season, and over the life of the
planting. Below are some of the benefits of
pruning:

1. Maintains bush productivity and vigor

through elimination of older, less
productive canes and rejuvenation of
new cane growth.
2. Facilitates harvest by developing appropriate growth habit.
3. Increases air circulation, reducing conditions favorable for disease development.
4. Reduces fruit numbers and opens canopy to sunlight, improving sweetness and fruit size.
5. Removes winter-injured, damaged, insect-infested, or diseased plant parts.

Before You Prune

Get your equipment assembled and ready to go. Sharpen all blades. If you are using pruning guns,
be sure equipment is fully operational and carry out any routine maintenance that may be needed.

Decide on a pruning
schedule, based on your
particular planting(s). What
variety or planting will you
do first? Does this particular
variety need special
pruning? Pruning
stimulates vegetative
growth. It follows, then, that
weaker bushes will benefit
from more pruning than
vigorous bushes; they may
also require detail pruning
as opposed to complete cane
removal. Special
consideration is needed for
varieties with spreading
habits. In this case you may
be tempted to remove all those canes sprawling into alley ways; care must be taken to leave
sufficient canes for fruiting.

Is this a young planting you are pruning for training purposes? Is it an older planting that needs
to be rejuvenated? How many canes should be removed from each plant? Are there insect or
disease issues that maybe re-dressed through detail pruning? How will brush from prunings be
dealt with?

On to the Main Event

In general, prune to an upright growth habit with an open canopy allowing good light penetration.
Do this in four easy steps. First, remove any damaged canes, i.e. winter injury, insect or disease
damage, or breaks. Second, remove canes that rub against another cane, to prevent spread of
canker diseases. Third, remove older canes and those canes obstructing movement through the
alleys. Fourth, remove any short, branched canes within the canopy; fruit on these interior canes
generally ripens too late to be harvested. Cut canes to be removed as close to the crown as
possible. Avoid leaving stubs which become ideal homes for canker-causing fungi. When branches
are removed, make cuts as close as possible to the main cane; avoid leaving short, stubby
branches for the same reason.

Plant Stage Pruning suggestions

1-2 year old plantings Little pruning required. Promote vegetative
growth by rubbing off flower buds in March or
April. Alternatively prune off shoot tips where
flower buds are located.
3 year old plantings IF more than 2 new canes were produced
previous year, leave the 2 healthiest new canes;
remove the remaining new canes.
3-8 year old plantings Continue light pruning, leaving the 2-3 best
new canes from previous season, until plants
reach full size. Eight year old plants should
have 10-20 canes of various ages.
> 8 year old plantings Annual removal of 8 year old canes. In general,
20% of older wood (1 out of every 6 canes) may
be removed without reducing yield. Berry
numbers may be lower but fruit will be larger in
compensation.
Plantings needing rejuvenation Strategy 1: Remove old, unproductive canes,
leaving 2 or 3 older canes and all younger
canes. IN successive years, remove up to 20%
older wood until new cane growth occurs. Keep
2-3 new canes and continue to remove 20%
oldest canes.
Strategy 2: Cut all canes to ground level (delays
harvest 3 years). Thin new canes to most
vigorous 6-10 canes.
Strategy 3: Summer hedge immediately after
harvest; selectively remove dormant canes.

Pruning to reduce disease and insect pressure

One of the benefits of pruning referred to above is reducing disease and insect pressure. Disease
pressure reduction in blueberries is a one-two punch, when it comes to pruning. Two of the most
common blueberry canker diseases, Fusicoccum (Figure 1) and Phomopsis (Figure 2), overwinter
in cankered wood. These fungi are also particularly adept at colonizing dead wood, particularly
pruning stubs. Removal of cankered canes and avoiding cane or branch stubs during pruning will
reduce the number of new infections occurring during the season. Prune out and burn diseased
canes and branches, taking care to remove all infected (brown) tissue below the cankers. Cultural
practices (maintaining plant health, minimizing winter injury and early spring frost damage) and
pruning out dead wood are more important in controlling canker diseases that sprays, so now is
your chance! Canker disease severity and spread may be further minimized if new cankers are
pruned out as they appear during the growing season.

Pruning further reduces disease development by maintaining an appropriate growth habit and
opening the canopy. Cane, leaf, and fruit surfaces dry more quickly when good air circulation
occurs throughout the canopy/planting, minimizing conditions favorable for disease
development. This is true not only for canker diseases, but other blueberry diseases as well.

Figure 1. Fusicoccum cankers on cane. Figure 2. Phomopsis canker, sometimes

mistaken for winter injury. Inset: Close-up of
fungal sporeproducing structures on cane
surface.
A report of another, less common blueberry disease also surfaced this past season, blueberry
crown gall (Figures 3 and 4). This disease is s sporadic problem and is not frequently seen in New
York plantings. It is caused by the bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, and may occur in
propagation beds and young plantings. It is sometimes found in older plantings as well. If you
happen to have this disease in your planting, take some of these precautions during pruning:
1) Prune bushes during dry weather,2) Frequently disinfect pruning equipment. A 10% bleach
solution or 70% ethyl alcohol (shellac thinner) solution works for this purpose, and 3) Remove
and destroy diseased tissue.

Figure 3. Bush infected with blueberry crown gall. Figure4. Close up of gall on cane.

(Pictures courtesy W. Bertram)

Insect pressure may also be reduced through good pruning practices. Scale insect infestations are
more frequently found in poorly maintained bushes. Good pruning practices go a long way toward
reducing scale insect problems. Keep an eye out for the hard -covered female insects on small
twigs and branches while pruning (Figures 5 and 6). If scales are present, schedule a dormant oil
spray for early spring during bud swell.

Figure 5. Scale insects on blueberry cane. Figure 6. Scale on young twig.

(Pictures courtesy G. Loeb, NYSAES-Cornell)

Insect stem galls were particularly prevalent on blueberries during the 2006 growing season and
several growers reported problems with this insect pest (Figure 7). The tiny wasps overwinter as
larvae in the galls (Figure 8). Adult wasps emerge in early June and lay eggs on twigs, causing new
galls. Currently there are no products available for control of this insect. Your only recourse in
this instance is to prune out and burn the galls now to reduce your insect stem galls next season.
Watch during mid to late June and July for new galls. Prune out and destroy them as they appear.
(See a movie on this pest at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/pp/extension/tfabp/movies.htm.)

Figure 7. Older stem gall with emergence holes; Figure 8. Insect stem gall with overwintering larvae.
younger galls to the left and below. (Picture courtesy J. Burth, Oswego County
CCE)
(Picture courtesy K. Cox, Cornell-NYASES)

Final considerations
Brush removal is an important part of the pruning process. Several options are available
depending on the layout of your plantings and available equipment. One method is to chop brush
in place using PTO driven equipment such as Bush Hog or a flail mower. Another option may be
to push brush out of alleyways and burn, chop, or chip it off site.
Is the job done? Not quite. What remains is to take time next fall and winter to evaluate how well
your pruning strategies for the 2007 worked, and determine what needs to be done in 2008 to
keep those pruning dollars yielding better blueberries, and returns on your investment.
References:
1. Pritts, M.P. and Hancock, J.F. (eds.) 1992. Highbush Blueberry Production Guide. Northeast
regional Agricultural Engineering Service, Ithaca, NY.
2. Caruso, F. and Ramsdell, D.C. (eds.) 1995. Compendium of Blueberry and Cranberry Diseases. APS
Press, St. Paul Minnesota.
3. Pscheidt, J.W. 1996. Blueberry Crown Gall. http://plant-
disease.ippc.orst.edu/disease.cfm?RecordID=179.
4. Schilder, A. and Cline, W. 2003. Michigan Blueberry Facts - Crown Gall.
http://www.blueberries.msu.edu/crowngall.htm.

(Reprinted from: New York Berry News, Vol. 6 No. 1, January 24, 2007.)